Chapter 6: 6
Severus waited until it was fully light outside to return to his daughter's bedroom, until he judged she'd gotten several hours of good sleep. He himself was exhausted, because he couldn't sleep while maintaining the barrier in her mind, and he had classes to teach in two hours. He would push himself through his classes, because he had promised Dumbledore that having Calista here would not interfere with his teaching schedule, and if that caused him to be a bit less patient than usual with his students, well, it was the first-year Gryffindors first thing this morning anyway, and the dunderheads probably deserved it.
He wished he didn't have to wake her; she looked so peaceful, childlike just as she had when he'd given her the sleeping potion. But he couldn't possibly keep shielding her while he taught his classes all day, and he did have to sleep eventually. Besides, there were several things that he needed to communicate to her, and he hoped that he would simply be able to tell them to her now, this morning, before he left her in the flat for the day.
Gently, he pulled some of the protective wall back into his own mind. It felt a bit like blood rushing back into a limb that had fallen asleep, and he had to let his mind settle before he could continue. Carefully, one piece at a time, he dismantled the whole wall, pulling it back into himself. He hadn't moved the memories, had only hidden them from the view of her conscious mind, but even so, it wouldn't be wise to overwhelm her mind with too much at once.
It took perhaps an hour to extract himself from her mind entirely; at the end, he returned the tiny piece of her mind that he had held onto as an anchoring point. Already, in those minutes, he could see her sleep becoming fitful, saw her fingers clench and unclench restlessly.
"Calista," he said softly, touching her shoulder gently.
She started awake, suddenly enough to make him jump, too. She gasped, and edged backwards, pressing her back against the headboard, shrinking away from him.
"Calista, it's all right," he said, frankly quite pleased with himself for sounding as patient as he did, when he was so drained from the night of guarding her sleep. "I'm not going to hurt you," he told her, for what felt like the thousandth time. She didn't believe him any more this time than any other time. He saw the blankness in her eyes, the tension in all of her muscles, that told him that.
He waited, giving her time to wake up fully, to relax, but the latter seemed out of her reach. She looked tense from head to toe, as if she were simply waiting for the right opportunity to dart around him, bolt from the room. Perhaps that was exactly what she was planning on, for he noticed her eyes flitting between him and the open doorway beyond him.
"Would you like to have breakfast now?" he tried. She tore her eyes away from the doorway, and shook her head no.
He sighed. He didn't know how much longer he could keep this up. She was like a feral animal, all wide eyes and racing heart, and he had never had the patience to tame anything. Pet cat, frog, or owl? He used cats' eyes and frog livers in potions, and a large part of the appeal of a teaching job at Hogwarts was the owlery, where he could let someone else feed his damn bird.
Still, he'd come up with a plan, last night, and his best option at this point still seemed to be to go forward with it. There were several things that he needed to tell her, and then, once she processed those, he wanted to show her what Legilimency and Occlumency were, party to allay the ridiculous fear he had uncovered through his musings the prior night, and partly so she would understand what had happened between them, when he'd entered her mind and guarded it.
"Calista, there are some things you need to understand," he said carefully. She looked down at the cover on her bed, as if it were the one addressing her now. He paused, hoping that she would look up at him, but of course she did not.
"You don't need to be afraid, anymore," he told her, "I should have told you before… It never occurred to me that you wouldn't know..."
He stopped. He had been about to remind her, verbally, that he'd forced his way into her mind, had combed through her secrets. But it appeared that she'd inferred the rest of his sentence, anyway; her eyes flicked up to him, with the same icy, insolent glare that he remembered from the very first time he'd ever seen her face, at the orphanage. She was angry with him, perhaps rightfully so, but he hoped that the first bit of news he had to give her would alleviate that, at least somewhat.
"Your mother - Bellatrix - she's locked away, Calista. She was caught torturing someone, and she's been put in prison."
For a moment, the child was very, very still. Then, the rage in her eyes shifted, was replaced by blankness once more.
"Do you understand what I'm telling you?" he asked, puzzled by her reaction, "Bellatrix is in Azkaban. She can't hurt you."
Her expression didn't change.
"Calista?"
She shook her head, no, and then her expression lit up with one of the last things he'd expected: disbelief. Her eyes widened, and the bridge of her nose wrinkled up disdainfully.
She thought he was lying to her.
"Calista," he said tiredly. He wished he'd been able to sleep before this conversation; wished he could go to bed after it, instead of into a classroom full of snot-nosed eleven-year-olds. "What could I possibly have to gain by lying to you about this?"
The look she gave him now was a challenge; the same one she'd given him when he'd first announced his intentions to adopt her from the orphanage. Evidently, she thought he'd stand to gain plenty by lying to her. Still, he would take this obvious disbelief over her blank stare. It was something; it showed she was engaged, one some level, with what he was saying.
"It's true," he reassured her, "She's serving a life sentence. The Ministry has no intention of letting her out."
For just a second, he saw a flicker of hope flit across her features, and then it had guttered out, to be replaced with an expression, once again, of wary disbelief.
So much for his master plan. He shook his head.
"I have to go now, I'm late for work… I'll have breakfast sent to the flat for you, all right? I'll explain more when I get back."
He made to leave, then paused in the doorway, looked over his shoulder at the small girl, still huddled at one end of her bed. He'd almost forgotten.
"Ah, and please don't try to run away while I'm gone."
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When he had gone, Calista tiptoed into the kitchen. Well, he had sent her up something for breakfast, that much was true at least. She picked up a corner of toast, sniffed at it suspiciously. What if he'd had it poisoned? She shouldn't eat any of it, now that the thought had occurred to her.
Her stomach rumbled. Well… perhaps she could eat just a bit, see if it made her feel sick. She considered for a moment, and then climbed onto one of the wooden chairs. She started with the toast, but once she had finished that, she was still hungry. With a little help from her belly, she decided that he probably wouldn't try to poison her, even if he had found out the bad thing. He could have poisoned her a hundred times before now, and he hadn't, so he must have some other plan. She finished her breakfast, and then went back into her room.
She lit the candelabra in her bedroom. It could be done with a wand, or by pressing a little brass knob that was set into its base. After she pressed the knob, she took her ratty little book off the top of her wardrobe, along with a quill that she kept in the top drawer, and sat down on her bed with the book in her lap.
She opened it, flipping through the pages. They were mostly filled with her own childish scrawl, but a few pages here and there were still blank. She stopped on one of these blank pages, and set the quill to it, scribbling furiously as she worked things out in her mind.
She had meant to run away today. She'd forgotten about it, until he'd told her that lie about her mother. For a minute, she'd almost believed him; she wanted to, badly. But she knew better. Bellatrix would never get caught. She was too smart for that. Calista had seen her torture dozens of people, had seen her intercepted by Aurors and by the Order of the Phoenix, and no one had ever caught her. She always got away cleanly, somehow.
And when he'd told her that, she realised why he'd said it. He had looked into her mind, had stolen her thoughts. He knew that she was afraid of Bellatrix, was afraid that he was going to give her back to Bellatrix and tell her what Calista really was. That was probably where he was right now, she thought, fetching Bellatrix to come round and collect her. And she was just sitting here, belly full and right where he expected her to be. They were probably coming back any minute now, both of them together.
Except that didn't quite ring true, because he left at the same time on many mornings, so he probably really was going to work. And she was fairly certain that she hadn't seen him before he came to get her at the Orphanage, hadn't seen him among Bellatrix's group of friends and fellow Dark Lord worshippers.
But then, maybe she had seen him. She thought that she'd dreamt of him before. What if those weren't dreams? What if she had met him, and he'd gone into her mind just like he did last night, and made her think that it had only been a dream. Could a person even do that? She wasn't sure, but she thought that if anyone could, it would be him.
She supposed she could run away, still. The castle had seemed so big when they'd walked through it, though. She wasn't sure she'd even be able to find her way out, and she definitely wouldn't know where to go next once she did get outside the castle.
He had asked her not to run away. Why had he done that? Did he have a plan to do something with her when he got back from wherever he was? Was he going to send someone round to collect her, take her away again, after all? Maybe he had told them where to find her and they would be angry if they came to find her and she wasn't here, anymore… but why would he tell her not to run away, then? Did he think she was daft? If he was going to send someone to take her away, then of course she was going to run away, first.
Unless… her eyes widened, and she looked up from her journal. Unless he wanted her to run away. Maybe he had some kind of awful monster waiting for her on the other side of the door to the flat, and he was waiting for her to try to leave so it could swallow her up. Maybe it was Bellatrix on the other side of the door, and he'd told her that she was locked up, and then asked her not to run away, precisely so that she would run away, and would be taken by surprise when Bellatrix was standing there, ready to bring her to the Dark Lord.
She furrowed her brow. What should she do? Should she wait here, and hope that he wasn't sending someone after her? Or should she run away, and hope that she didn't run straight into Bellatrix, or maybe a dragon?
She frowned. Maybe, just maybe, there was a tiny chance that none of this was right, that he really was just going to work, and that when he came home he would tell her more about her mother being in prison. Maybe he wasn't lying, maybe he really thought that she had been caught. Maybe Bellatrix was the one tricking both of them…
But, no. Bellatrix wasn't the one that had discovered her secret. It was him. And even if the things she'd been afraid to even think about hoping for were true, even if he had cared about her a little bit, even if he'd liked teaching her about potions, that had all been before he'd looked inside her mind. She wanted to believe that perhaps he hadn't found the bad secret, but she knew better. She'd felt him poring over her thoughts, going through all of her memories. He knew. He had to know.
In the end, she stayed. She didn't know what else to do, really, and besides, whatever his intentions were in relation to her running away, he was alerted to her plan at any rate, so she couldn't do it, not today. She'd wait, then, see what happened next. One thing was for certain: she wouldn't listen to anything else he told her, not until she figured out what exactly it was that he wanted from her.
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Severus entered the flat just before dinnertime. A headache pounded at his temples. If he had been tired that morning, he was absolutely exhausted now, and two melted cauldrons and a fire had done little to improve his temper.
He went into his study first, and deposited a newspaper on the side table. He'd managed to scrounge up a copy of the issue that announced Bellatrix's arrest; he wanted to read it to her, later. Perhaps after dinner. Of course, he had to go through it again first, make mental notes of which parts to skim over. She'd seen what Bellatrix was capable of doing to other people, there was no point in rehashing the details of the torture with the poor child. Perhaps he should tear the picture out, too. He didn't know if it would trigger some of her bad memories to come lashing out in full force.
He looked in the kitchen. She wasn't there, but it looked like she'd eaten, so that was good, at least. Perhaps she'd calmed down since he'd left her this morning. Maybe she had used the day to process what he'd told her, accept that she wasn't in physical danger from Bellatrix any longer.
"Calista?" he called, and he was surprised to hear the strain in his own voice. It had been a long day, indeed. "It's time for dinner."
He cleared the breakfast dishes, summoned some dinner up from the kitchens. By the time Calista entered the kitchen, he had already set their plates and sat down. She entered cautiously, eyeing him warily; it was like the last several weeks had never happened. He began to wonder if he had imagined her tentative smile, the budding interest in potions that he'd seen in her eyes.
He ate, hoping food would restore some of his depleted energy; it didn't, not by much. He had not had time to eat lunch, because he'd been too busy tracking down the newspaper for Calista.
Calista, who, for her part, was sitting stonily across the table from him, fork still in place on the table, eyes cast down at a plate that it looked as if she had no intention of eating from.
"Eat," he commanded her, tiredly, "You're still nothing but skin and bones."
She looked up at him, searching his face; for what, he didn't know. He suspected that all she would find there, at the present moment, was exasperation. To his relief, she picked up her fork, stabbed it half-heartedly at her food, took a bite.
When he was nearly finished with his own dinner, she rose from her chair, avoiding his gaze. He looked across the table at her plate; it didn't like she'd eaten much more than that first forkful.
"Calista," he began, not even certain what he was going to say. Sit down and bloody eat, will you?, or perhaps Say something, damn it. He sighed. He really was exhausted. Perhaps he should simply let her be tonight, try this again tomorrow.
He might have done just that, had she not sidestepped the table in such a particular way, darting around him as if he were the subject of her nightmares, instead of the one trying to find a way to spare her from them.
"Oh, for the love of Merlin," he said, setting his own fork down with a clatter, and rising from his chair. She made as if to run down the corridor, straight for her room
"No," he said, sternly, "Stay right there." He stormed into his study, picked up the newspaper, and before he'd had time to consider the wisdom of his actions, he whipped around the corner into the corridor, and thrust the newspaper in her direction.
Miraculously, she had done as he'd bid, and stayed where she was, until he'd practically leapt back into the corridor, brandishing a folded paper. She jumped back instantly; he stayed precisely where he was, holding the paper out. "Go on," he said, "Take it. You won't believe me; perhaps you'll believe the Daily Prophet." Although, he thought darkly, at this rate, he wouldn't bet on it.
He could see curiosity warring with caution on her face. After several seconds, she slipped forward, took the paper quickly, and darted back a step. She eyed him warily, not taking her eyes off him long enough to even glance at the paper.
"I give you my word that I will stand right here, in this very spot, until you've finished reading," he said.
That didn't seem to convince her; she backed up two more steps before she finally unfolded the paper, lowered her eyes to read it.
Her eyes widened in shock; then, they roved across the pages rapidly, devouring the words, much like she'd done with his red-covered Theory of Magical Disciplines book, the day he'd caught her reading it in his study.
Too late, he wondered if he'd made a mistake; perhaps he'd acted too rashly in brandishing the paper at her. He didn't remember how much detail the article went into, and he did remember that Bellatrix looked positively deranged in the accompanying photograph. But he was so tired, and damn it, he was hurt too, when he thought about it. He'd done everything, everything he could think of for nearly five months to convince this child that he meant her no harm, and she still looked at him like he was a bloody dragon.
After several long minutes, Calista looked up. Her eyes were big and round, huge shadows in her small face.
"There's probably no point in my even saying this," he said, "But I am not in the habit of lying to you, and I don't intend to start."
There was a long pause, while they simply regarded each other, at opposite ends of the corridor. Then Severus sighed.
"I'm sorry if I gave you a shock by handing you that paper. I just wanted you to know, you don't have to be constantly wary of her jumping out of the shadows to snatch you up."
She stared at him, her expression still unchanging. She was still cautious, still tensed in case she need to move, fast.
"By the way," he said, not quite certain why he bothered, "I'm a professor. That's what I do all day. I teach children to brew potions… and, curiously, none of them are as frightened of me as you are, even though I have far less patience for them than I have for you. And if I wanted to poison you, don't you think I would have done so by now?"
And this, this of all things, she responded to. She relaxed her shoulders, cocked her head to the side, wrinkled her nose. After a brief pause, she straightened, and nodded. I suppose that makes sense, he could almost hear her saying.
Unbelievable. It had taken all of this, months of silence, of careful coaxing and bitten-back words, of gentle reasoning and soft responses, and the one time that she listened to what he had to say was when he'd gotten so frustrated he'd addressed her more or less like one of his students.
Must everything be a challenge with her?
As if she had read his mind, she drew herself up, and turned her back, dashing quickly into her room while he was distracted by his thoughts. Her door closed, softly but firmly.
And then, Severus chuckled, for the second day in a row.
Of course, he thought, A challenge.
At last, he thought he knew just what he needed to do to connect with her. He yawned. Tomorrow, though. After he'd gotten some bloody sleep.
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As soon as the last of his classes was over, he returned to his flat. Unsurprisingly, Calista was holed up in her room again. He knocked on her door twice, turned the knob, and pushed it open just a crack. "Kindly meet me in my study," he said, knowing she could hear him.
He went out first, settled in one of the two chairs; several minutes later, she arrived, face carefully blank. He motioned for her to sit in the other chair, and she complied, after a slight pause.
"I suppose you're angry with me for entering your mind, and looking through your memories."
She lifted her chin, glared at him.
"Have you ever tried to do it yourself, Calista?" he asked her, conversationally. "Enter someone else's mind?"
She raised her eyebrows, shook her head no in a manner that somehow managed, of all things, to be condescending."Well, I think you should," he said, matter-of-factly. "In fact, it's only fair, don't you think?"
He leaned forward. "I'm going to open part of my mind to you, and I'm going to put a secret of my own there. I won't just give it to you, though. You have to find it on your own."
She looked at him as if he were absolutely mental, folded her arms across her chest, and shifted further back into her own chair, distancing herself.
"I think you'll find," he said, "that if you try, you can reach out with your mind, right into mine."
This was the biggest gamble in his plan; he'd sensed a natural inclination in her mind, for both occlumency and legilimency, but she was still very young. Although she evidently could practise occlumency to some extent, there was a strong possibility that the latter would be completely out of her reach just now. Still, he thought the point he wanted to make would be even clearer if he could show her that she could do both. And besides, he suspected that a challenge like this was precisely what she needed, in more ways than one.
For a long time, she only stared at him blankly, and he thought she wouldn't even try.
"Unless you think it's too difficult," he said, seemingly off-hand.
That earned him another icy glare; and then he could see her concentrating, watched her brow furrow.
He felt nothing, even though he was attuned to it, was waiting for her to try. He'd placed a barrier just inside the outer edge of his mind, and planted a few choice bits of information there.
He watched her carefully; she was trying, but nothing was happening. He supposed he shouldn't have been surprised; after all, it was an art that she was completely unaware of.
The point of this exercise wasn't to watch her struggle. He reached towards her with a tendril from his own mind, seeking hers out. He was surprised to find that it was absurdly easy to connect with her this time, even though he was a couple of metres away from her, wasn't even directly making eye contact, and still wasn't using his wand. He was skilled, to be sure, but it seemed too easy even for that to explain it. Perhaps it was because she was trying to reach him at the same time?
But no; she wanted to reach into his mind, certainly, but he could see that she had no idea where to start. He felt her bristle at his unexpected intrusion. In an action that was something like taking her hand, he plucked at a thread of her conscious mind, tugging it gently along with him. There was a point in the consciousness that one could reach through, if they knew where it was and how to do it. He guided her there, even as she tried to recoil from him. It was a bit like threading a needle, the way he showed her to slip through a tiny gap in her own mind, one she probably hadn't even realised was there.
He guided her as far as the gates to his own mind, and then he released her to find her own way. Nothing at first, and then, a sudden clattering against the barriers of his mind. He had erected a special barrier on the very outer edge of his mind, one that he'd judged would be challenging, but not impossible, for her to breach. It was strong, and would seem entirely impenetrable at first glance, but there was a weak spot in it, and if she truly had both the potential and the cleverness that would be necessary for her to learn legilimency, then she would find it.
After her initial haphazard attempt to push through the barrier, he felt her retreat slightly; then, he felt a curious, childlike exploration of the mental wall. She was poking at it, here and there, trying to determine the nature of it. All the while, he held her gaze as best he could; both so he could observe her process, and so she would have an easier time maintaining the connection.
Her little face was screwed up in concentration; her brow was furrowed, her nose wrinkled, mouth drawn up in a little bow. Her fists clenched at her sides, probably without her realising it. It was… well, if Severus had been forced to describe it, he would have begrudgingly called it cute. Luckily, he was under no such obligations.
After she had explored the barrier, tapping against it in a dozen different places, he felt her hit on a weak spot. The whole barrier appeared solid, but there were chinks. one of them was right in the spot where she was examining. He felt her excitement, seconds before she rushed at the weak spot, pushing a great deal of energy at trying to get through with brute force.
The wall pushed back, forcefully; You can't overpower me, he let the words light up in the forefront of his mind, so she could see them. You have to think it through.
He felt her hovering just outside the barrier. Because she was inexperienced, he was able to predict her strategies based on clues in her own thoughts. There were ways a legilimens could conceal his or her presence in another's mind, but it was a very advanced magic; it would be years before he could even consider trying to teach her that.
He eavesdropped on her thought process, curious to see how she would solve this problem. He could feel a mixture of frustration and excitement emanating from her, as she tried to figure out how to breach the barrier.
Severus grew slightly impatient as the searching tendrils of Calista's mind prodded the same points in the barrier repeatedly. Because she could not guard her attempted intrusion yet, he knew that she was carefully searching the barrier section by section, and she was approaching it entirely wrong. He felt her pull away again, and then, finally.
He sensed her examining the mental barrier as a whole again, instead of in parts. The barrier was like a chain-link fence, constructed with threads of interrelated thoughts running through the links so that she could not see through it. She plucked tentatively at the first set of strings that ran through the fence. These were useless, tedious thoughts, lists of ingredients for simple potions and trivia from various titles on his bookshelf. She would find nothing useful here.
She tried the next group of strings, and pulled away immediately, startled. This group of threads was thick and thorny; it carried the surface bitterness that he often used as a shield around himself. He was surprised how closely it resonated with parts of Calista's mind, now that he was examining them side-by-side.
After a while, Severus thought he had scared Calista away with the darkness of these fence-threads, but then he felt her again, pulling on another link in the chain.
When her mind brushed the secret to opening the barrier, he felt a small thrill; perhaps he had not overestimated her abilities. Perhaps she really could do this. She passed over this set of threads, tested a few more, and then returned to it again.
It was an intricately woven braid that when pushed against acted as a force field, keeping her away from whatever lay behind it. However, Calista discovered that when she pulled instead of pushed at the barrier, that it loosened from the rest of the fence. The only way to remove these sturdy threads from the fence was to pull them into herself, which she did.
Once the set of threads was entirely within her mind, they exploded with a shock that sent her away from his mind in a jolt. The threads formed words that echoed in the child's mind:
Never pull anything into your own mind unless you are certain of its nature.
The warning he had woven into that particular set of threads exposed itself to her, and he waited until she came back, now peering cautiously through the holes in the fence left behind after she had removed the thick braid of thought from it. She rushed towards the barrier again in her excitement, and Severus pushed back at her, pushing more words into her mind.
The mind is full of traps. When you throw all of your strength against them, they can destroy you in one blow.
There was another pause as she considered this information, and then a tendril of her thoughts snaked into the largest of the newly created holes in his barrier, before the rest of her probing thoughts slipped through.
She had done it; she'd found her way through the barrier he'd created. More importantly, he could feel that her mind was buzzing, alive, that she was fully engaged in this little game; and even if he hadn't felt it, he could see it plainly in her features. While her face was screwed up in concentration, her eyes were alight. He was immensely pleased with himself for coming up with this plan, for finally realising just how to reach her.
But the challenge was only half-finished. He felt her sorting through the words, feelings, and images that he had placed behind the barrier for her to find. He'd selected these carefully, and he monitored her reactions to them with interest.
There were images, memories of himself teaching in his dungeon classroom just down the hall from the flat they were in. He saw her register the authenticity in what he had said, when she saw these; she lingered with interest over a memory of himself delivering a lecture on the twelve uses of dragon's blood to a classroom full of first-years.
Next, she found his memory of himself going to Albus Dumbledore's office the day after Bellatrix was imprisoned, seeking information about her, Calista. He attached the emotion he'd felt that day, as he went to the address that was written on the slip of paper Dumbledore had given him. He could feel Calista's puzzlement; why had he been nervous?
She buzzed around that for a minute, followed it to his memory of seeing her face for the first time. She registered surprise at how much of a resemblance her face bore to his; she had never really noticed it before, never had much cause to study her own face in the mirror. He let her see, too, how he had instinctively liked her, felt drawn to help her. She considered this with the same confusion, flitted away from the memory, then returned to examine it again. He could feel, again, that she was perplexed.
There was another memory, a darker one. This was the one where he'd first woken her from a terrible nightmare, had seen the terror in her eyes, and had been willing to do nearly anything to take it away. He still was. He hoped she would pick up on that, but she was already past this memory, hastily leaving the image of herself, frightened, behind.
There was another memory of his, concerning her, that he allowed her to see. In this one, she flitted about in the storeroom adjoined to his potions workshop downstairs. She approached him, a jar of dried leaves held out proudly in her hands. A tiny smile spread over her features, just barely beginning to lift the shadows off of her face. She seemed surprised to see this image in his mind, and more than a little wistful, like it was something that was now out of reach.
And then she stumbled on the one thing that he particularly wanted her to see; a little package of thought, wrapped up in a protective bubble. This was another challenge for her, and he felt her approach it curiously. He felt her light upon it, and was pleased when she approached it slowly, cautiously, sending only part of herself to investigate it. Immediately, she began searching for threads similar to those in the barrier, but this safeguard was entirely different. It was like a thick, dense fog that she could not penetrate, and so she retreated again for a few moments before returning, partially withdrawing from his mind.
Severus gave her another hint:
Each time you leave and return, you allow another chance for discovery upon your entry. Don't retreat; just stop pushing.
She hesitated, floating her searching tendril just outside of the compacted bubble of thought, and the fog thinned. She tried once to drift through the thin spot in the fog, but was shoved out again as the fog thickened at the first sign of her intrusion. She tried the same thing, again and again, in different places along the edge of the little bubble. He felt her getting frustrated, offered encouragement.
You're almost there. Think.
He could feel her examining the bubble more closely, snaking her little tendril of of thought all around it, feeling it out. In front of him, in the study, Calista bit her lip as she thought about this puzzle. He could see her mind working, feel her curiosity, her determination to figure this out.
And then, he felt a tiny poke at one spot on the bubble. The fog thickened again where she touched, and he felt another poke in a different location. Fog moved from its even distribution to respond to these touchpoints, and she kept sticking tiny tendrils of herself against the bubble on one side, until the other side of the bubble was clear. She pushed herself through, and reached the information he had saved there for her.
Severus paid careful attention as Calista sorted through the knowledge he had hidden inside the mind-bubble. He had enclosed a little packet of information, explaining, simplistically, the nature of occlumency and legilimency; he revealed to her that she had been practising occlumency in its most basic form for quite a long time, was right now, at this very instant, performing legilimency. Finally, he showed her, in the form of a passage he'd memorised from the very same book they'd been reading together, in a chapter they hadn't gotten to yet, that both were magical arts.
He could feel her confusion turn to surprise, and then to a glimmer of hope, and it was here that he gathered all the little searching bits of her that were in his mind, and guided them, and her, gently out of his mind.
She started, eliciting a small gasp, when that tendril snapped back into her own mind; it was a jarring sensation, at first, to return all at once to your own mind. He waited until she seemed to have come completely back to herself, leaned forward in his chair again, and, still keeping his eyes locked on her, spoke to her quietly, spelling out what he had only implied in his mind:
"What you needed more than anything else was a place to hide, and so you created one, inside your mind. This is the way that your powers manifested themselves; just the way you needed them to."
She looked at him, dark eyes wide, and there was a hunger in them that reminded him powerfully of the way that he had felt when his mother first told him about Hogwarts, told him what he was. It had changed his life, when she'd spoken the words aloud, given him hope and a foundation to build his identity on; Now, he offered his daughter the same cornerstone, spoke softly but full of conviction, so she would know his words for the truth.
With a single sentence, he took the final step in allaying her the secret fear that he had seen flitting about the corners of her mind, the reason that she thought he would want to be rid of her, now.
"Calista, my child, you are a witch."
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